Pelorus Papers

When police officers respond to a mass casualty event, when firefighters rush into a burning building to save children or when paramedics arrive on the scene of an accident to render care to trauma victims, it is very often the work of 9-1-1 emergency contact center operators that make all of the difference in the world. It is the prompt, expedited, and knowledgeable handling of these 9-1-1 calls that helps ensure a rapid response and potential life-saving intervention on the part of America’s first responders.

With rare exception, the 240 million emergency calls received each year are handled flawlessly. But when things go wrong, they can go badly wrong. The exceptions attract far more attention than the sometimes heroic efforts of trained call takers calmly walking anguished callers through health, criminal and fire emergencies.
In October 2009 Reader’s Digest ran a feature story, “9-1-1 Calls Gone Tragically Wrong,” citing many tragic examples. With 24-hour cable news networks and viral media like YouTube, it does not take long for news about a bad incident to reach thousands and even millions of people and shape their views about the quality and competence of the emergency communications system.

A car hits black ice and spins out of control and crashes into a tree. The driver is badly injured and unable to use his cell phone to call for help. The accident occurs in rural Jackson County near the border of Columbia County. The nearest hospital in Jackson County is 40 miles away. However, there is one in adjacent Columbia County just 10 miles from the accident. Diego Garcia spots the accident from his car and stops to help. He calls 9-1-1 on his cell phone. Mr. Garcia is not a local resident and is a foreign national who speaks in broken English. He is unable to give precise instructions on the accident location and Jackson County is not yet capable of capturing location information from cell phones. He has a camera built into his phone and would be happy to send photos, including the injured person, the damaged vehicle, and nearby street signs. He could text in the information since the call taker is having difficulty understanding him. However, the PSAP has no way to accept text or video. Since the call is routed to the Jackson County PSAP an ambulance from the hospital 40 miles away is dispatched as well as a local Sheriff’s deputy. It takes an hour to locate the accident and another two hours to administer emergency care and take the patient to the Jackson County hospital.